When the topic of abortion is raised in politics, our discourse usually revolves around religion, morality and the right to life and women’s health. To me, this is somewhat justified, for abortion is a complicated issue and there are multiple perspectives, each of which considers these three topics differently. To some, abortion is purely a matter of rights for women, while others object to it on strictly religious grounds.

Abortion is tied up with these issues, for denying safe abortions for women is an attack on their collective right to good health, while objecting abortion based on religion (although common) goes against our freedom of religion. Yet, most people seem to ignore the literal result of an abortion i.e. a would-be human life no longer has the chance to enter our world.

The most objective and scientific way to consider abortion is that it prevents the addition of another human being to the world. However, it is different from just not being pregnant because no clinical procedure with political ramifications is required to achieve this state as a woman.

As much as I would like the subjects of women’s health and religious freedom to be objective, they aren't at all in modern society. So, while we fail to agree upon the moral and social aspects of abortion, I hope we can all understand the physical difference an abortion has on the population.

I choose to use rational reasoning rather than spewing facts and figures to demonstrate why abortion is an important medical procedure that should not only be legal, but free and even encouraged by the government.

To begin with, let us consider the physical needs of a human being including air, food, water, clothing and shelter. A human being needs these things to live--plain and simple. All of these things are material. There is a limit to the materials available to us on Earth (which is why we should give money to NASA, but that’s a whole different subject).

Every human life, hypothetical or already in existence, takes away from these finite materials in order to survive. When you consider that there are millions of people who lack one or more of these material requirements, wouldn't it be better for these physical things to be used to improve the life of an already-living person? An unconscious fetus or yet-to-be-conceived child is a potential drain on these resources that could be allocated to suffering people.

Obviously, getting an abortion isn’t going to end world hunger and there are a lot of issues that contribute to the scarcity of resources other than a large human population. However, if we look at a single abortion as a method of birth control, we can conclude that more frequent use of birth control would allow for the preservation of resources.

Having more natural resources available to those who need them would prevent their deaths rather than hypothetically sustaining another that doesn't even exist.

My logic is that fewer people mean more resources, which allows for a higher quality-of-life for those who lack resources. This can save lives. These truths are terribly oversimplified and ignore many problems involved with poverty and hunger, but they're important to consider.

For example, soil will always be needed for crops, but won't always be viable. In the United States, there are places that have a maximum quantity of water that a household can use. Every person's carbon footprint contributes to the depletion of our atmosphere. Considering these points, it’s hard to see a world where adding to the population helps our existing population. So, in biological terms, getting an abortion does more good than harm.

Along with this biological impact of fewer people comes a higher quality-of-living. Poverty is a major problem. But each human can only (honestly) obtain these natural resources with money. If families have to spend less money on essential needs, they can, in turn, spend more money on things that will improve their lives, such as education, healthcare and entertainment.

The common conservative response to this argument is, “Why don’t poor people just stop having children?” But this question ignores the frequency of unintended pregnancies. A woman can desire to abort her pregnancy if she is raped or becomes impregnated because of the failure of contraceptives. To the latter, you could always say that poor people shouldn’t have sex, but that is a ridiculous notion. Every human has a sexual drive. To deny this right just because someone is poor is inhumane.

Thus, I think the government should be giving out free, highly-effective forms of contraception to anyone who needs them. If people are completely against abortion, then it is only logical they should be in favor of free contraception in order to prevent the pregnancy in the first place. This would be equally effective to control the population, while simultaneously avoiding the controversial subject of abortion.

At the moment, though, we’re left to the redundant debate of pro-life vs. pro-choice. Regardless, I hope I have shed some light on the positive outcomes that abortion can have on the well-being of our country and the world. Lowering the birth rate will increase our quality of living as human beings. And if that's the case— that abortion helps to redistribute resources to people in need— then it would follow that a pro-life person actually cares little about others, and in fact, are anti-life. Think about it.